NEW YORK (Reuters) - Most everyone agrees former New York
Times reporter Walter Duranty was undeserving of the 1932
Pulitzer Prize for his reporting from the Soviet Union, but the jury is
out on whether honor should be revoked.

The Times published findings on Thursday from a report it commissioned
in July, after prodding by the Pulitzer board, from a Columbia University
professor that trashed Duranty's 1930s reporting as a "disservice" to
Times readers.

The Pulitzer Prize Board says it is now confidentially considering its
options, The Times wonders whether rescinding the award would be
tantamount to committing a Stalinistic sin of "airbrushing history," while
professor Mark von Hagen says integrity dictates Duranty be stripped
of the honor.

"It should be rescinded for the integrity of the Pulitzer Prize itself and
for anybody who gets it in the future and for The New York Times, too,"
von Hagen said on Thursday.

The Pulitzer Board and The Times both acknowledge being pressured
because of Duranty's later failure to report a famine that killed millions
of people in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933.

Duranty, who died in 1957, has been criticized for simply parroting the
political line from Stalin's government in his dispatches and ignoring harsh
realities.

The Times story on Thursday detailed two examples of its own repudiation
of Duranty, including a 1990 editorial acknowledging that his articles
"contained some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper."

The Times said it would respect any Pulitzer decision, but raised points
against revoking the award.

Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr, in a letter to the Pulitzer board,
noted it might be setting an unfortunate precedent for revisiting judgments
made over many decades.

Executive Editor Bill Keller, who covered the Soviet Union for The Times
for five years from 1986, was quoted in the Times story as having
misgivings about wiping out Duranty's award.

"As someone who spent time in the Soviet Union while it still existed, the
notion of airbrushing history kind of gives me the creeps."

Von Hagen dismissed that line of thinking.

"I find that very troubling," said von Hagen, an expert on early 20th
century Russian history. "I really don't find that there is a moral
equivalency to taking away a prize they agree he didn't deserve, with
Stalin doing what he did to people."

Sig Gissler, administrator of The Pulitzer Prizes, said there was no
timetable on a decision about Duranty. The board holds its next
biannual meeting on Nov. 21.

Reuters, New York, NY, Thursday, October 23, 2003
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